


Of Oak and Ash and Grasping Thorn

by pagerunner



Series: The Family Tree [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-02-11
Packaged: 2018-09-23 14:57:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9662300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pagerunner/pseuds/pagerunner
Summary: When Cassandra overhears her captors planning against a mysterious new group of rebels intent on reclaiming Whitestone, she finds herself faced with a terrible test of loyalty. A companion story to Green in the Crown.





	

The dream began with the Sun Tree, stark black against an empty sky.

It was a winter dream, it must have been: no leaves to be seen, no colors in the landscape. Even in sleep, Cassandra felt the piercing cold. Skeletal limbs shivered above her, while ghostly flakes of snow drifted down to land upon her skin, catch in her hair, sting her eyes.

Cassandra stretched out her arms. One of the branches reached back, creaking as it strained to meet her fingertips. Others seemed to be bowing beneath unaccustomed weight, but Cassandra, frozen with fear, didn’t dare turn to see why. The tree kept quivering, and the flakes fell more heavily, clouding the air.

It took time to realize they weren’t snow. When she studied them against her too-pale hands, she recognized the ashen remains for what they were.

The tree was slowly disintegrating.

As Cassandra watched, the tree’s bark began peeling away. The wood beneath darkened and split, and entire limbs began cracking free, their unseen burdens falling heavily to the soil. The tearing strain of it all finally sundered the heart of the tree. As the trunk split jaggedly down the center, what little was left exploded into dust, and Cassandra reeled. The choking cloud silenced her scream, filled her lungs, blocked out what remained of the light…

She finally woke with a gasp and a terrible cough. It took time before she could make the real world resolve.

Through watering eyes she picked out a few familiar things, and she named them one by one to center herself: one lamp burning, a patterned Marquesian rug beneath her, heavy tapestries upon the wall. Eventually, her sense of place returned, if not any real sense of comfort. She was curled into a chair in her own room in the castle, and she was alone.

In her mind’s eye, the image of the dying Sun Tree lingered.

 _Please don’t be true,_ she thought, before noticing the slate-gray skies outside her window. With alarm, she got to her feet. _And please don’t let me be late._

Cassandra’s life had shifted into strange hours these last few years, bound as she was to a master who had no fondness of the sun. But today she’d also been pressed into daylight duties, and exhaustion from an unusually long day had gotten the better of her. Gods, she shouldn’t have drifted off like this… _Dinner,_ she thought, while she reached up to check the state of her hair. _There are guests coming. You’ll be expected. Make yourself presentable before…_

She didn’t finish the thought. She’d just walked past the window, and the mockingly indistinct shadows beyond it caught her eye.

The view from here had always been foggy. The defensive charms her father’s glaziers had laid into the panes made the glass slightly opaque—necessary, he’d said, if not advantageous to the view. But in daylight, she still could have seen the whole town from here. Now darkness cloaked it, for better or worse. Whatever her lord and lady’s creatures were doing in Whitestone tonight, she didn’t have to see it. Unfortunately, the familiar shape of the Sun Tree was also out of sight. Once its presence had been comforting. As it withered, it haunted her more than anything. Tonight, though, when she could have used any proof at all that it still stood…

She let her forehead rest against the cold, warped glass. Only slowly did she push herself back upright. The sun was almost gone, and she knew she didn’t have time.

Cassandra swallowed down the lingering taste of ash, turned from the city that should have been hers, and went to ready herself for another night with the monsters that ruled her home.

—

Whitestone Castle had survived many things, and it would likely survive even the Briarwoods, but their influence could be felt in the very stones by now, in every inch of this shadowed hallway.

Once family portraits had hung along the corridor Cassandra was crossing now. Some of those paintings had been so old that no one could remember who the most distant antecedents were, although familial resemblances remained, suggesting at the line’s grand history. Those were now long gone. Cassandra still missed the portrait of the old hook-nosed man who used to loom over the staircase, no matter how cross he’d always seemed. Lady Delilah’s cold, haughty smile on the new canvas was no improvement.

Cassandra found herself hesitating before it, caught by that stare. She had to give the portraitist credit; he’d captured something of Delilah’s unnerving aura, and he’d also done…something…with the surrounding darkness, hinting at an unseen presence. From the right angle, in the right light, Delilah seemed to be gazing toward someone, and her smile in those moments looked less unkind.

Cassandra considered the image, feeling an odd pang. Then she did her best to brace herself before turning toward the stairs. It was a short walk from here to the dining hall, where voices were echoing into the outer chambers. The dinner had already begun.

In her early time with the Briarwoods, she’d sometimes pay deliberate inattention to such conversations. If she pretended just hard enough, let the specifics blur away, the indistinct chatter almost sounded like family dinners used to. Now, she carefully evaluated what awaited her, picking out each voice in turn. One familiar laugh made her grimace. _Kerrion,_ she thought, wishing they’d invited any number of alternatives. Duke Vedmire, for instance, used to terrify her by his stature alone, but he seemed to follow a certain personal code, or at least a professional disinterest in the likes of her. He’d never offered any hostility or threat. Sir Kerrion, on the other hand, acted kinder than he was, mostly in the name of manipulation, and had veered uncomfortably close to flirtation more than once.

 _Just be grateful it’s not Tylieri,_ she thought with a shudder. She made herself step closer to the doors, one of which was slightly ajar.

There, a few words came clear enough to make her stop.

“What a farce,” Kerrion was saying. “We’ve quelled far more organized uprisings than any ragged band of mercenaries could offer. What interest could they even have in this?”

“Money.” The disdainful rejoinder was Jazna Grebin’s. From the sounds of it, she was talking around her food. “What else?”

“The more interesting question, however…who’s paying?”

Cassandra rubbed at an old, deep scar below her collarbone. That had been Professor Anders, fishing as ever for a clever answer. Jazna, however, seemed impervious to his technique. “It’s not that interesting. Kill them, take the payment, look for evidence on the bodies. Then track it back and kill the employer too. Problem solved.”

“Ah, my dear Jazna,” said Kerrion dryly. “Direct as always.”

“Gets results.”

“I’m sure it does.”

“Your enthusiasm for the cause, as always, is appreciated,” came another, smoother male voice. Cassandra’s hand stilled; her pulse quickened. “But I believe my beloved is favoring a subtler plan.”

“Yes, Sylas. We are familiar with these individuals, after all. And so, I believe, is our young ward eavesdropping on us from the hall.”

Cassandra felt a sudden chill.

Delilah’s poison-sweet voice was answered by the scraping of a chair. Cassandra only managed one rocking step, not quite forward, not quite back, before the dining-hall door swung wide. Kerrion’s silhouette cut through the spill of light into the hall.

“Cassandra.” He smiled a bit too widely. “So nice of you to finally join us.”

She held her tongue, but there was no real choice but to take the invitation, such as it was. Kerrion’s hand pressed with unpleasant warmth to the small of her back. When he ushered her inside, Cassandra took in the tableau: a more dimly lit room than her parents had ever kept, with enough candles to cast a golden aura around the table but not enough to banish all the shadows. It only drew more focus to the decadence on display, and to the people consuming the feast.

Jazna alone made no note of Cassandra’s entrance. She just went on chewing messily. Anders ignored that with apparent effort, but gave Cassandra the sort of judging look he’d always reserved for unsatisfactory pupils. It was hard not to feel a flush of guilt. The figures at the end of the table, though, soon commanded her full attention. Sylas sat imperiously at the head, and Delilah sat close beside him. Everything about them seemed calculated to dazzle and disorient. Elaborate clothes that made her own dress look drab, effortlessly elegant poise, a hint of viciousness hidden behind their smiles…

And oh, were they eyeing Cassandra like she was just another course in the meal.

Kerrion nudged her forward. Cassandra stepped past Dr. Ripley’s recently vacated seat, not letting herself look too closely at the empty space, and dipped a curtsy. “My apologies. I was feeling unwell, and just woke.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Is it anything I could remedy?”

Knowing what sort of magics Delilah usually employed, Cassandra shivered and shook her head. “No, my lady.”

Delilah smiled again. Cassandra wished she wouldn’t. “In that case, I’d like to speak with you. In private, if possible. Gentlemen? Jazna?”

“I don’t get my fancy title?” Jazna asked.

Delilah gave her a subtly ironic smile. “Apologies, Countess.”

Jazna snorted out a laugh. She downed the last of her drink and nodded to the lord and lady before she stood. By the time the half-orc’s gaze tracked past Cassandra, she was smirking outright. Cassandra did her best to let its implications slide on by.

“Thank you, everyone,” Delilah said. “We’ll join you again afterward. Cassandra, darling, come closer.”

She did, while the others began taking their leave. Sylas inclined his chin, watching her closely. Delilah just sipped at the last of her wine. Neither of them invited her to take her seat, so she did not. She stood quietly, noting Sylas’ conspicuously empty plates, and took a deep breath as the doors swung shut.

“Thank you for answering me promptly,” Delilah told her, before her voice took on a slight edge. “We do expect you to honor your duties to us.”

Cassandra bowed her head. Sylas scrutinized her thoughtfully. “How much exactly did you hear?”

There was no point in anything but answering plainly. “That someone is plotting to cause trouble for you. Mercenaries, not from Whitestone. And you said they were known to us—even to me. But I don’t know who it would be.” She paused, worried now as to their angle. “I vow, it’s nothing I’ve hidden from you…”

“That’s not the concern at hand. Do you recall what occurred when we visited Emon?”

Now she was puzzled. “You said you were confronted there. But you never shared many details.”

Delilah reached up to grasp Cassandra’s hand, her grip gentle but unmistakably possessive. “Those who stood against us there, despite everything we had to offer…we were loath to tell you this part, darling, for we knew it would be difficult, but I fear now it must be shared.”

“I’m…not sure I understand.”

Delilah could look so sympathetic when it suited her. Sylas was the one who spoke, however, and his voice bore no pity. “Their number included your brother.”

“ _What?”_

“Percival,” Delilah said softly. “It was Percival.”

Pain bloomed in her chest, sudden and deep, like the shock of incoming arrows: one memory, another, another.

 _She’d managed to slip away that night, evading notice with the help of a maid and more knowledge than she should have possessed of the castle’s hidden passages. Some had been meant for servants, some for subterfuge—and some, fittingly, for escape. But she had to know before she took that final corridor if anyone else had survived. She’d heard Anders saying that Percy had been taken somewhere, taken by that horrible doctor, and if it was true, she had to make her way down_ this _staircase first…_

_Her hand that held the key was still shaking after a near miss in the hall, but she knew what she had to do, because that huddled, wounded thing in the cell…she knew who it was. Blood matted his hair at the forehead, turning the dark brown almost black, and he seemed abstracted somehow, distracted and disturbed. But when she got the door open at last and scrambled forward, she saw Percy stir enough from the shadows to meet her eyes. He whispered her name like he didn’t quite believe it was her. Like he didn’t believe this was real. And maybe, she thought later, that was the problem. Maybe, deep down, he didn’t…_

_They were running, fleeing, trying to outpace the shouts and sounds of pursuit. Percy’s breathing was labored, and Cassandra’s ankle, twisted in a stumble down an uneven passage, barely held her weight. But they went as fast as they could over the icy ground, praying the forest before them would be enough of a place to hide. But that shelter itself betrayed them. It was the crack of a branch that gave them away, and Cassandra, turning in horror to see their pursuers take aim, was the first to be struck. One blast of pain, and another, and another…_

Cassandra felt her knees weaken, dropping her into a chair that Sylas had pulled out for her. He’d moved almost too swiftly to be believed. Delilah was still holding her hand. “Cassandra,” she murmured, slowly bringing her back to the present. “Oh, my child.”

There was a tremble to her voice that Cassandra might have noticed under other circumstances. A certain choice of words. It washed past her, though, and she only slowly became aware again of Sylas looming above her, Delilah squeezing her fingers. She shook herself. “I’m sorry. I…”

“You have many painful memories,” Delilah said, all gentle forgiveness. “The way that he left you…it must have been hard.”

 _You killed everyone else,_ part of her screamed. _You took_ everyone else _from me._ But Delilah was still watching her so intently, and the pool of light around the table had somehow shrunk, concentrated so that it felt like the three of them were the only people in the world.

And she kept remembering Percy that night. Percival, running.

“He’s proven selfish in his actions,” Delilah said, twisting the truth so deftly. “He has a dangerously vicious streak, and he’s become bent on vengeance. And if he remains set on such a path against us, I cannot trust he would treat you any more kindly than he did before. You must understand, Cassandra. I mean only to protect our home. To protect you.”

The whole world felt gray. “What do you intend to do?”

“We mean to send Percival and his companions a message. Perhaps even give them an opportunity to reconsider before they act. But most of all, it’s to make perfectly clear the consequences they court.”

A warning, then. Cassandra took no comfort from that, for Delilah meant nothing as a kindness. Neither did Sylas, who’d rounded the chair to face her.

“We must ask one small thing,” he said. “If this group has chosen to take a personal vendetta against us, we feel it would be…pleasing…to respond in kind. For that, no one here has better personal knowledge of Percival than you do.”

“And you deserve some choice about his fate,” Delilah whispered. “Since he gave you no choice about yours.”

Memory rose again, and Cassandra closed her eyes.

_After she fell, she didn’t have the strength left to cry his name. It was silent except for the wet sound of her own failing breath, the fading sound of his footsteps. By the time anyone found her, she’d slid almost fully into shadow. The bone-like branches overhead, the hands reaching for her…it all blurred together into a grasping, dreadful darkness._

_And it dug such claws into her that when her eventual, would-be rescuers were found and slaughtered for the crime of trying to heal her, and when she was dragged back to the castle to face her fate alone, it all felt strangely inevitable._

_Inevitable, and inescapable._

Cassandra shuddered. Sylas’ bony fingers gripped her shoulder when she did, pulling her the rest of the way out of that darkness and into another. “Tell us, Cassandra. Say what you would have us do.”

When she answered, she heard it as if from a long way away.

“My brother ran from death that day. So…make him face it. Show him himself, his friends, everyone he loves…”

Memory gave her the faces of her family’s corpses, which the Briarwoods had taken every pleasure in forcing her—and the entire town—to witness. Bitterness crept into her voice.

“Effigies,” she whispered. “Make him see.”

Delilah’s mouth curved into a disturbingly delighted smile.

“Yes,” she breathed, sitting back to face her husband. “It's been too long since we've made such a display. Bodies made to resemble theirs…they’ll make the whole band instantly recognizable. All of Whitestone will know what we intend.”

“And Jazna and her boys will have such fun putting proxies to the axe,” Sylas replied, amused. Cassandra’s eyes widened. She’d pictured cloth scarecrows, or at worst old corpses, not people murdered for the occasion—but of course this was what her lord and lady would do. “We can provide sufficient description for her to find a matching set. Right on down to our wayward white-haired lordling.”

“Wait. White-haired…?”

Delilah answered by smoothing two fingertips down the long, colorless lock in Cassandra’s own braid. It was at once an explanation and the start of a terrible question. If that comparatively small mark had been born of trauma, what had her brother gone through?

Something deep in her heart ached. Delilah began soothing her again, however, whispering for silence and for ease before Cassandra could even begin to think of missing him. “Don’t trouble yourself with such things,” Delilah murmured. “We’ll take care of this, and it will be over. His companions have no place here. And Percival’s time in Whitestone is done.”

Cassandra slowly nodded, drained of the will to argue. What presence of mind she maintained helped her turn her head and break the gaze. “If that was what you needed, may I go?”

“I…if that is what you wish, darling. But you haven’t even touched your food.”

Her stomach turned. Delilah may have detected that in her expression, because she didn’t press. She only murmured, “Very well,” and sat back again. Freed at least in part, Cassandra stood.

Sylas was the remaining problem. He still stood close, and Cassandra felt his gaze tracking to her throat, even hidden as it was—deliberately—by the high collar. She went tense, which only worsened when he put a hand to her arm again and said, “Wait.”

Reluctantly, she did. “My lord?”

“There’s still one thing you haven’t shared.” He gave her a pointed smile. “If effigies are your plan…where would you have us hang the bodies?”

And there, she realized with dread…there it was.

 _They’ll make me say it,_ she thought. _They already know the answer, but they intend to make every part of this my fault._ Her head was full again with nightmares: dying wood withering, something terrible hanging from straining branches. Familiar faces. Silent, rictus cries for aid she couldn't give. She’d already known how this would end. She just hadn’t let herself see.

Now there was no escaping it, no more than she’d had the chance to escape anything. All that was left was to give Sylas the only answer he’d accept.

“The best place is obvious,” she told him, her voice cracking. She tasted ash again in the air. “You've done it before. If you mean to draw Percy’s eye, and break his will…”

 _And kill what’s left of Whitestone’s soul,_ she thought. _Just like you did to mine._

She raised her chin and met his eyes.

“Hang them from the Sun Tree.”

Cassandra let the words fall, then turned and walked away.

She could only hope for her brother’s sake—regardless of what fates either of them truly deserved—that he would do the same and run once more, before it was too late.


End file.
